A couple of weeks back I had my first experience with Sirius-XM radio.

That’s the satellite network that now gives me access to lots and lots of channels in my automobile. I can even get Jeanne Robertson on one of the comedy channels.

I have played around with it and found lots of good stuff. Talk channels, sports channels, and lots and lots of music channels. I can get a channel with nothing but Elvis, another with Sinatra, yet another with Willie Nelson.

But the one that has really captured me is the one that plays only the big band music from the 1940s and 1950s. Big bands really came into the spotlight in the 1930s, but I did not hear much of that music then. I was busy learning to walk, talk, feed myself and other things that little kids do in their early years. Those bands were really big in the 1940s, and by then I could appreciate the music.

It was in the 1950s, however, that I became a real fan of that genre of music. It was the music of my day, and I heard a lot of big bands “live and in person,” if you will, in my days at Chapel Hill. Every so often, one of the biggest of the big bands would visit the campus for a concert and dance. I was dating Billie Faye in those days, and we experienced a number of those events.

I was never accused of being a dancer. My feet just never worked things out. But Billie Faye put up with it and we attended events that featured Johnny Long and his orchestra, Jimmy Dorsey and his band, Ray Anthony and ole Satchmo himself, Louis Armstrong.

We also saw Woody Herman. The Herman orchestra was scheduled for an afternoon concert at Memorial Hall before the dance that night, and they were quite late in arriving. Seems they were held up a bit in Carrboro, where the police stopped them for speeding and showed no mercy. Woody said they were going to play their frustrations out, and they really put on a concert that day.

The big bands were, well, big. There were lots of guys, and they were heavy on brass, reeds and drums. They made a big sound, and the best of them played the biggest venues across the country for a number of years.

During that same period, we went to a dance with the Vaughn (Racing With the Moon) Monroe orchestra in Greensboro, and I was able to see the Les Brown band in concert at the Paramount Theater in New York City during that time. Brown played for a show that featured Bob Hope and Jane Russell on stage. Quite memorable.

Saw many of the big ones over the years but I never saw my favorite, the Glenn Miller orchestra. I mean that I never saw it with Miller. I saw it after his death, when Tex Beneke led it, and then back in July I saw the present version at Williams High as part of the Times-News 125th anniversary event. To me, that orchestra and its distinctive sound never grows old.

Page 2 of 2 - The Miller orchestra was formed in the 1930s and is still going.

Many sounds have come and gone in the music world since the big band years. And some sounds that should have gone are still with us, but we can hope. But the big band sound seems to hold on. It has been hard to find that music on the radio in recent years, but thanks to Sirius radio, I can now hear it every time I get in my car.

I suppose every generation has had its own style of music, and as a new one comes to popularity the old ones fade away.

But I refuse to surrender. I will continue to listen to the big bands – thanks to Sirius.

Don Bolden is editor emeritus of the Times-News. His column appears every Sunday. He can be contacted at DBolden202@aol.com.